Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. One who higgles.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A close or tricky bargainer; hence, a chaffering peddler or huckster; one who goes about selling things for as much as he can get.

Etymologies

From higgle. (Wiktionary)

Examples

Mary, after an afternoon out, came home with her face all red and blubbered, sat in the kitchen sobbing and rocking herself, and told Mavis how she had heard on unimpeachable authority that the higgler was a married man.

He was, besides, the best sacrifice the higgler could make, as he had supplied him with no game since; and by this means the witness had an opportunity of screening his better customers: for the squire, being charmed with the power of punishing Black

He pitched, therefore, upon the city of Hereford, where he worked honestly for a space, until being in company one night with a higgler, he heard the man say he should go to a place called Ross to buy fowls.

The higgler to whom the hare was sold, being unfortunately taken many months after with a quantity of game upon him, was obliged to make his peace with the squire, by becoming evidence against some poacher.

He was, besides, the best sacrifice the higgler could make, as he had supplied him with no game since; and by this means the witness had an opportunity of screening his better customers: for the squire, being charmed with the power of punishing Black George, whom a single transgression was sufficient to ruin, made no further enquiry.

On the night of the 17th a peculiarly brutal murder had been perpetrated on a poor higgler in Essex; and the Journal for January 28, tells us how Fielding “spent near eight hours,” examining, separately, suspected persons, “at the desire of several gentlemen of Fortune in the County of Essex”; having on the previous Friday and Saturday, been engaged “above Twenty hours in taking Depositions concerning this Fact.”